Sorry for this long updating gap, folks. Forgive me? Please? I'll make it up to you by writing an entertaining one-shot. So send me suggestions! I'll pick the one I like best, or even incorporate a few ideas. ;) Send 'em via PM. Now that I'm back in school life should be more structured, including my writing.

"FUCK!"

Graverobber whirled around, ready to swing at…what? What was there to punch? His arm ached sharply with the movement, but he disregarded the pain and ran up the steps. Somehow, he knew Shilo wouldn't be close. She had run. When kids like Shilo ran, they kept on running. This knowledge was intimate to Graverobber, and he felt a curious chill down his spine. What if she didn't come back?

With loud treads Graverobber bound down the hallway, nearly knocking Blue down in the process. She latched onto his arm and started with shock at the look on his face.

"Have you seen Shilo?" he quickly asked.

"Um, no. What the fuck happened? Isn't the point to not lose Shilo?"

Graverobber shook her hands away. "I scared her, okay?"

"You sc…what did you do, put on a sheet and yell boo?"

"I'm going look for her."

Blue ran to keep up with Graverobber's long strides. "Let me come!"

"No, stay in case she…" there was a boisterous laugh from the front room Graverobber recognized. Shit. More complications.

"Go distract Riley."

Blue looked stunned, then incredulous. Graverobber quickly corrected himself. "Not with a fuck. I don't know, pretend you need a light bulb changed or something."

She looked ready to protest but Graverobber pushed her away and hurriedly slipped out the side of the building. It was completely black outside and eerily quiet. The city was huge. Shilo could already be…anywhere. She could have ran north, south, east, west…

Graverobber started walking his most familiar route, to the part of the city Shilo was most likely as familiar with, too. The graveyard was this way, and so was the deserted Wallace home. As he moved nimbly through people and ducked in and out of alleys Graverobber's dread only grew. This was ridiculous. His best hope was that Shilo would have the sense to return to The Glow, or maybe Riley's current headquarters. But everyone in the city knew her face. Everyone knew the Largos wanted her. Greedy hands scratched the walls of every corner, and she was at their mercy.

A voice hissed into his ear, one that was familiar but different all at once. The mind can do that with memories. Let her go.

The latch was stuck. With a few quick jerks Shilo shook it loose and slipped inside, the heavy door slamming behind her. She leaned against the wall and tried to catch her ragged breath, but dust flew into her throat and made her choke. Marni Wallace's eyes stared at Shilo's coughing fit, stared at her face that was red with exertion and tears. She looked disgusted.

"What did you ever do?" Shilo said to the painting. "What did you ever do but die?" Hands and legs trembling with equal intensity, she climbed onto the empty crypt and screamed at the graven image of her mother.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"

Her tails were clawing at the thin canvas, ripping away pieces of the faded color. The backdrop first, then the trail of Marni's dress.

"STOP…STARING! STOP STARING! STOP IT! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!"

Pieces of the painting fell around Shilo as she sobbed. It had happened to fast, and now her throat was raw from screaming. Her fingernails were sore. Through the blur of tears she noticed something strange on the wall, behind the gold frame. Shilo wiped her face, then stared dumbly at the safe.

"What…"

There was a keypad. Shilo bit her lip and typed in her mother's birthday, and when that didn't work the number equivalent of her name. Shilo tried her own as well, but nothing but a red beep. Her palms were itching to tear open the safe as she had the painting. What secrets were inside? What answers? It was incredibly odd for her father to put something like a safe in this vulnerable of a position- not even inside the house. Not in the attic, not underground. The crypt. The crypt in the cemetery. Shilo sank down onto the hard tomb and slipped off her heavy man's jacket and boots. She placed the vest on top of the jacket, the scarf on top of that, and fluffed the pile up like a pillow. The crypt was rather stuffy so she wouldn't need an improvised blanket. Shilo curled into her Jack clothes like a burrowing cat near some fireplace. As she settled into the makeshift bed she thought about Graverobber, and which of them had made the bigger blunder.

The needle fell from Demetri's hands with a clatter. Inside of him, a coin was spinning and spinning and spinning...

Things always fell apart, if they were even that cohesive in the first place. And still that coin at the center of his universe, spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning…

As soon as Graverobber's boots touched the hard churchyard soil, he knew there was no other place Shilo could gave gone. After all, the animal always runs back to its hole. Regardless of danger large or inconspicuous, living creatures will find the familiar places.

The tomb seemed to be peering down at him; the looming window-eyes assailed and cautioned.

Don't worry, Lady Stone, your daughter is not in danger, Graverobber thought. He ran his hands over the smooth door, feeling oddly solemn. The knob turned under his hand, and a gust of cold air hit his face. Cliché, but as such for a reason. Shilo was curled on the slab of stone underneath her heavy man's coat. Her brow was furrowed in an unpleasant sleep, lips trembling. For the second time Graverobber lifted up Shilo from the grime and, cradling her to his chest, left the mausoleum. Its eyes followed him.

"Do you know any bedtime stories?"

Graverobber looked up with a start. He'd thought Shilo had been long asleep, and had begun dozing himself. Her voice was wide awake, contradicting his assumption, and heavy with a sadness usually found in the old and lonely.

"What?"

"Bedtime stories," Shilo murmured in the darkness. Graverobber was sitting on the floor against the bed, and her little voice was hot on his ear. "When I was feeling sick, super sick, and everything hurt, and I couldn't sleep- Dad would tell me stories of faraway places and adventures..."

Her voice caught, and she continued more quietly, as if fighting back a sob.

"It was almost worse than the pain, but sweet too. These beautiful things I'd never see or do." Pause. "Do you know any happy ones?" she asked hesitantly.

"I know lots of stories, kid." Graverobber's voice sounded unrecognizable to him. "But none of them are happy ones."

This fell between them and settled like a dead leaf in the silence.

"Tell me about Marcus then," Shilo finally said.

Graverobber pressed his hand to his chest, almost hissing. A bird was flying around in there, tweet twittering as it bounced off his rib cage, the chimney of his throat.

"There isn't much to tell," he began. "There was sunlight back then. Maybe there still is, but you'd never believe it being here. The colors were endless, and so was the air. Marcus was easily bored, however. Books and butterflies only amused him for so long.

There was also a mother, a father, and a younger brother. The mother was kind, the father evil tempered and crass. Marcus was nothing in his eyes, just a useless dreamer. Another mouth to feed in hard time. The summer Marcus turned 18 his home was the same as ever. The heat and the cows and the corn were the same as ever. But things had changed in the south. Things kept quiet. But regardless of what we knew or suspected the refugees came. They were filthy and, despite whatever devastation had pushed them north, loud…and different. Cajuns and gypsies, they made camps in the forests and abandoned fields. What they couldn't get by hunting, gathering, and growing they stole. Charity was hard to find then. What could anyone do? The farmers, the refugees…

Marcus met a friend in the camp, and was offered the clandestine option of escape."

Graverobber felt like a puddle, the low hot remains of a candle burned down. A raw version of himself made up of only lost sensations and flimsy, tattered memories. He could see it all so clearly now, though the images had been hidden beneath blood and debauch for so long: the patchwork tents fluttering in tantalizing wood smoke, the crazed dancers in a fit of limbs an rollicking music. He and Jessup swimming, running like savages, leading away golden skinned girls with hidden winks, talking about a world that was different and wide…and always, always that sharp glint in Jessup's sky colored eyes. It should have been recognized as a warning. And when the old fortune telling crone had gotten the strangest look when she read his cards. The tower. The Black Man. Fire…

Graverobber realized he'd spoken the last word out loud.

"What fire?"

"Nothing," Graverobber said, almost snapping but checking himself. Enough of that. Enough. A frenzied yell was trying to claw its way out of his throat, because now the box was opening too widely. He squinted at Shilo through tired eyes and blue fringed darkness. She placed her palm against his cheek and Graverobber almost shattered irrevocably under the kind touch. He removed her hand and kissed it, somewhere under the thumb.

"I'm…I'm glad that Marcus…"

Shilo started, but Graverobber quickly cut her off by dropping her hand gently onto the blanket.

"Get some sleep, kid."

Shilo settled in, but he could hear her stirring. She wouldn't sleep now, not with the weight of his mind pressing onto her already heavy one. So Graverobber did the only think he could think of and began to sing softly, the deep gravel of his voice completely at odds with the song. In his mind he heard them sang by someone else, sweet and far away. The words remained even after Shilo's breath eased, even after his own eyes closed.